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Home Wireless Networking Kerfuffle

For years, our home wireless network's been using WEP network encryption. nearly useless, i know, but we kept it that way so my sister could play her Nintendo DS online.

I've noticed for some time that my PC (running vista ultimate 64) will have a slow-as-hell connection. this is odd because we're lucky enough to have FiOS. usually the slowness is accompanied by the Windows wireless indicator in the system tray showing "limited access". It usually went away on its own, a small annoyance at best. Other times, i'd have the "limited access" indicator and my internet speed would be just fine.

So i do some googling and find out that the Network Location Awareness service in windows-anything-before-7 is wonky as hell and likes to slap on "limited access" for no apparent reason. Ok, says i, i don't even want to deal with that bullshit, so i disable the service and things seem hunky dory except that now nobody can see the networked folders on my PC, and i can't see our networked printer.

I do some more googling and find out that perhaps the problem is WEP encryption (Network Location Awareness doesn't like it?). I make the switch to WPA2. sorry sis, your DS is outdated. fuck nintendo.

the connection seems a lot more stable. at this point NLA is still turned off and i'm really happy at having a good solid connection, but i still can't see the networked printer, and nobody can see the networked folders on my PC.

so, assuming the problem was the WEP encryption, i turn NLA back on, and the network's visible again! only now my connection's in the shitter. massive lag spikes, dropped connections, pings in the 500s to regional servers, it's a mess.

to top it all off, my sister's switched to linux and her computer would have a hard time seeing the networked folders anyway.

At this point, i'm a little frazzled but I'd love to just kick NLA to the curb. is there a way i can make my PC visible to the network without that awful service?

Getting rid of WEP definitely helps, especially since so much of WEP is overhead for the poor encryption. Have you looked into updated drivers for your Wireless NIC? Sometimes that can make a big difference.

"Damn you and your Daily Doubles, you brigand!"

I don't believe it - I'm on my THIRD PS3, and my FIRST XBOX360. What the heck?

Getting rid of WEP definitely helps, especially since so much of WEP is overhead for the poor encryption. Have you looked into updated drivers for your Wireless NIC? Sometimes that can make a big difference.

i've looked into it some, but i had a repeatable crash based on my wireless drivers so i'm a little gunshy about straying from something i know is stable.